Some you may remember from years ago the Church Street Station entertainment complex in downtown Orlando and its primary restaurant, Rosie O'Grady's. Colonel Joe Kittinger was one of the owners and Rosie's was aviation themed around the barnstormer era. "Rosie O'Grady's Flying Circus" used a biplane to do banner towing and skywriting around the Orlando area to advertise the place. I recall having dinner at the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant (I miss that place) on the field at Orlando Exec (KORL) and watching the plane make a low pass to pick up the banner. Well, today on the ramp at KGIF (Winter Haven) I saw this: 1975 Grumman Ag-Cat. The registration gives an address in Shreveport, LA, so I guess it's just here for a visit. I'm assuming this plane was used by Rosie's back in the day, so it was pretty cool to see it on our ramp.
When I was working on my instrument rating back in 1991 out of Williamsburg, VA, it came time for my long cross country. I said we might as well go someplace. I didn't care much which direction we went so I asked my instructor if he wanted to go North or go South. He picked South. I'd never been to Florida at that point...so Orlando Exec, here we come for an overnight! We dropped in Rosie Grady's that night. Good memory.
Once upon a time, they had quite a fleet. Several Ag Cats, a T-6 that did skywriting, hot air balloons, etc. Neat stuff!
